Rock the Bells

Summer has finally caught up with the so called 'summer movie season,' which actually began more than a month ago.

But if the summer movie conversation is dominated by political films like "A Mighty Heart" and Michael Moore's "Sicko" - and more on this one soon - the box office belongs to all those sequels and crowd-pleasing commercial fare like "Evan Almighty."

Bubbling beneath the radar of both trends is "Rock the Bells," a 2006 documentary about the farewell performance of the hip hop group the Wu-Tang Clan, including Old Dirty Bastard, and the behind the scenes efforts by an eccentric but dedicated young promoter to stage the show.

It has been acclaimed as a must for fans of music documentaries and hip hop music, and it plays Friday and Saturday at midnight at the Times Cinema, 5906 W. Vliet St.

Another reason to see it is that the executive producer Barry Poltermann is a Lake Geneva native, who co-directed "Aswang" and was an editor on Milwaukee based filmmaker Chris Smith's films "American Movie" and "The Pool" which had its premiere earlier this year at Sundance.

"Rock the Bells," which was directed by Denis Hennelly and Casey Suchan, is due on DVD July 31.